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Source Description

Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. "About half an hour before the halt for evening, scouts are sent out in advance of the main body, in order to reconnoitre and select a spot combining the requisites for an encampment:- as the wagons and charettes approach the location, they take a circuitous course, and by the time the last vehicle has reached the ground, the Caravan has formed a circumference of 5 or 600 feet;- the horses and mules are now unharnessed, and loosed to feed, leaving the vehicles at a dinstance of some 30 feet apart, forming a species of barricade; towards sundown the horses are driven in and picketed, and this scene forms the subject of our sketch. Most extensive cookery ensues, and the prairie forms the only table available for the viands." A.J. Miller, extracted from "The West of Alfred Jacob Miller" (1837).In July 1858 William T. Walters commissioned 200 watercolors at twelve dollars apiece from Baltimore born artist Alfred Jacob Miller. These paintings were each accompanied by a descriptive text, and were delivered in installments over the next twenty-one months and ultimately were bound in three albums. Transcriptions of field-sketches drawn during the 1837 expedition that Miller had undertaken to the annual fur-trader's rendezvous in the Green River Valley (in what is now western Wyoming), these watercolors are a unique record of the closing years of the western fur trade.

Scholar Source Context

Document identity
localId
25156
label
Our Camp
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
25156
contentType
drawing
stage
normalized
title
Our Camp
description
Extracts from Alfred Jacob Miller’s original text, which accompanied his images of Native Americans, are included below for reference. "About half an hour before the halt for evening, scouts are sent out in advance of the main body, in order to reconnoitre and select a spot combining the requisites for an encampment:- as the wagons and charettes approach the location, they take a circuitous course, and by the time the last vehicle has reached the ground, the Caravan has formed a circumference of 5 or 600 feet;- the horses and mules are now unharnessed, and loosed to feed, leaving the vehicles at a dinstance of some 30 feet apart, forming a species of barricade; towards sundown the horses are driven in and picketed, and this scene forms the subject of our sketch. Most extensive cookery ensues, and the prairie forms the only table available for the viands." A.J. Miller, extracted from "The West of Alfred Jacob Miller" (1837).In July 1858 William T. Walters commissioned 200 watercolors at twelve dollars apiece from Baltimore born artist Alfred Jacob Miller. These paintings were each accompanied by a descriptive text, and were delivered in installments over the next twenty-one months and ultimately were bound in three albums. Transcriptions of field-sketches drawn during the 1837 expedition that Miller had undertaken to the annual fur-trader's rendezvous in the Green River Valley (in what is now western Wyoming), these watercolors are a unique record of the closing years of the western fur trade.
provenance
William T. Walters, Baltimore, 1858-1860, by commission; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
date
1858-1860
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
genreSpecific
Painting & Drawing
watercolors (paintings)
imageCount
1
pageCount
1
source
import
dimensions
units
cm
width
23.5
height
34
dimensionsRaw
H: 9 1/4 x W: 13 3/8 in. (23.5 x 34 cm)
Source extras
med
watercolor on paper
creator_ids
4486
collection_ids
EAN
exhibition_ids
2165
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
f02c9fbacf9911c0